Holiday in Cambodia Read Online Free

was … direct yourself or you’ll take the indirect … wait … it was take the indirect road like your dad did, something like that.’
    ‘So now then, what road did your daddy take?’ Svensen lit a cigarette and blew the smoke up into his narrowed eye. I shrugged. I hadn’t seen my dad since I was eleven, when he drained the bank account, gambled the money and left a note for Mum that said, Sorry, babe . I told Svensen as much.
    ‘Booyah!’ said Svensen.
     
    Svensen insisted on stopping at a few beer halls on the way ‘for luck,’ so by the time we arrived at the casino it was nearing 3 a.m. and we were inebriated to the max. Huge snakes guarded the entrance just like at Angkor Wat, but I touched them on the way in and they were made of fibreglass. Unfortunately Svensen didn’t have any money so I withdrew a large portion of my fortnight’s wage and exchanged it for gambling chips. A surprising amount of people were still playing at the felt-covered green tables, their eyes fixed on the next flick of cards. My mum had instilled in me a fear of gambling that outweighed crime, drugs and unprotected sex and I froze in the middle of the room, glancing from one table to the next. Before I could really freak out, Svensen commandeered a woman in a lovely traditional skirt and top and lots of makeup. She brought us several shots each, which we downed at the poker table, then the roulette wheel and then, with the last few chips, at blackjack.
     
    When all the chips were gone, I remembered that they were money and made it to the toilet just in time to throw up my last meal until payday. It smelled of stomach acid and iodine. I lay with my cheek on the cool floor, staring at a stray pubic hair, grateful that Apsara couldn’t see me. When I staggered out, she was standing by a giant rock near the female toilets. She looked different, filled out I suppose, but I put that down to some good city eating.
    ‘Apsara, you found me,’ I said. I smelled of spew, but she didn’t seem to notice and went on smiling as I leaned towards her and gently kissed her lips. Some off-duty bar staff walked past and whispered to each other, laughing.
    ‘Do you know them?’ I asked her, wiping the strange lip dust she was wearing off my mouth. The supermarkets in Phnom Penh were as full of whitening powders, paling creams and magic lightening tinctures as they were bronzing creams in Melbourne. I wanted to sponge it all off her. To see her teeth, make her laugh. ‘So, do you come here often?’ I tried my best stud impression, leaning on the rock next to her, but it wasn’t as solid as it looked and crumbled hollowly under my weight. It knocked Apsara over and I wondered if she was drunk too. As I put her back onto her feet, Svensen came stumbling out of the high rollers room, sweating profusely.
    ‘Gotta go,’ he said urgently and glanced over his shoulder at two well-dressed guards in polite pursuit.
    ‘Svensen, I’d like you to meet Apsara,’ I said, untangling myself from the rock.
    ‘Hot,’ he said and grabbed my arm. He dragged me through the epic doors and into a breeze that carried the smell of swamp and landfill. Tuk tuk drivers shouted to us and one of them, to my joy, was Dara. I ran towards him but it turned out he was just another smiling man.
    ‘Do you know Dara?’ I asked, panting. The man took his cap off and scratched his head, grinning at the other drivers.
    ‘Show me Dara,’ he said finally, and got out a carefully laminated map of Phnom Penh.
    ‘Dara isn’t on any of these roads,’ I insisted, ‘he’s …’ The man smiled his big Dara smile. Then I started running. Svensen hooted behind me. I charged back up those stairs and burst through the doors – a messenger returned from the battlefields of Siam. The only guard left had fallen asleep in his chair and didn’t hear me say to Apsara, ‘I told you I’d come back for you.’
    It was seriously like something out of a movie.
     
    ‘Is she heavy?’